A Guide to Dry Dog & Cat Food : Australia

Leaps & Bounds is the home brand of PetBarn and City Farmers. They don’t tell you it’s a home brand on the packaging, which is something we call a phantom brand. Many people would be detered from buying a home brand if it actually looked like a home brand, so they now tend to be packaged like “premium” brands. Most home brands in Australia are made by the same manufacturer.

Let’s take a look at the Chicken & Rosemary formula. We’ll start with an excerpt from the Leaps & Bounds website which tells you what they want you to know, not what they don’t. Please note this is common across most pet foods, not just Leaps & Bounds.

Doesn’t that look tasty and wholesome?

If we correlate the above pictures with the real ingredients we see the main ingredient is meat meal (poultry, beef and/or lamb), a rendered product comprising of carcass, sinewy tissue, and some muscle meat from a variety of animals, not just the succulent chicken we see pictured.

The second ingredient isn’t just rice, but a combination of rice and wheat. Don’t you think it’s strange they only make you aware of the rice, and not the wheat? Wheat is a problematic grain in terms of allergies and itchy skin but is a cheap way of bulking up a pet food. Cats are obligate carnivores so don’t need either grain anyway, and given the carb % is higher than the protein % that means your cat is getting more carbs from grains than protein from meat.

The protein is ramped up with soya bean, which is a cheaper substitute to real meat protein. We also find cereal protein from corn, another stigmatised ingredient which they neglect to mention on the packaging and marketing. Seeing cereal bran is also ominous, and can be problematic for your pet carnivore to digest.

To offer some small positives about the food, it’s nice to see the inclusion of salmon oil and linseed for heart health, skin, and coat. It’s also good to see natural antioxidants and preservatives.

It’s not an optimal diet for a carnivorous animal, but not many dry cat foods are.

If this has helped you please take the time to share it to other Australian pet owners. Thank you 🙂